TOKYO/ATHENS (Reuters) – The Tokyo Olympics were postponed on Tuesday to 2021, the first such delay in the Games’ 124- year modern history, as the coronavirus crisis trashed the world’s last sporting showpiece still standing this year.
Though a big blow to Japan, which has actually invested $12 billion in the run-up, the relocation was a relief to thousands of athletes worrying over training as the world headed into lockdown to combat an illness that has actually claimed more than 16,500 lives.
Pressure had actually been constructing on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president, Thomas Bach, with some professional athletes and sporting bodies mad that a seemingly inevitable decision had actually taken so long.
After a call in between Bach and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both stated the July 24- Aug. 9 Games would move to summer 2021 at the current in a hoped-for event of victory over the pandemic.
The Olympic flame, already lit at Olympia in Greece and taken to Japan for a now-canceled torch relay, would stay in the host nation as a symbol of hope.
” Sport is not the most essential thing today, protecting human life is,” Bach stated. “This Olympic flame will be the light at the end of this tunnel.”
Though it was the first Olympics’ post ponement, the Games were canceled outright 3 times during the last century’s 2 World Wars. Cold War boycotts also disrupted the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics in 1980 and1984
ATHLETES UNFORTUNATE BUT RELIEVED
Athletes were disappointed however broadly backed the hold-up, offered h